


Lend Me Your Coat

by Philyra



Series: Don't Hold Out [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Coda, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 16:48:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5463866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philyra/pseuds/Philyra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maria does not have a yen for Steve Rogers. Absolutely not.</p><p>So how does she end up wearing his jacket?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lend Me Your Coat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lotsofstuffandpaper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotsofstuffandpaper/gifts).



“Needed the air?”

“Needed the space,” Maria corrected. She didn’t bother to turn around, knowing full well who had come out to join her on the terrace. If it were Nat, she would have slid up silently and made some sort of wry comment. If it were Clint, he would have tried to scare her. Helen, Sam, Thor, or Rhodey would have hailed her from the door, and Tony would have just done something obnoxious. Bruce probably wouldn’t have even bothered coming outside. So, the only other option was…

Steve made a small noise, a little “ha!” under his breath. “Stark?”

“Isn’t it always?” She brought the champagne flute to her lips. Champagne was still an odd commodity to her – usually it was cheap beer, nice microbrews when she was feeling fancy, or some type of hard liquor that burned like fire going down. Fine champagne, like the kind she’s had at various Stark events since she signed on, is like liquid sunshine. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about it.

“What did he do this time?”

Maria rolled her eyes. “Just him and Thor whipping things out and measuring. It got very, very old.” She made the crack about testosterone because it was either make a joke out of it or smash Tony and Thor’s very, very hard heads together. As if, she thought with disdain, Jane or Pepper would ever even think to be pitted against one another in such a competition.

Steve choked and bit back a grin. “I can see why you had to get out then.”

“I have my excuse, so what’s yours?”

She followed his gaze down to the glass in his hand, with a scant inch of golden liquor left at the bottom. “Ah,” Maria said, remembering some of Thor’s boasting from earlier. “How’s the Asgardian mead?”

His lips curved slightly at one corner. Maria has noticed this kind of smile, if only because he only lets it go in his more unguarded moments. It’s a little wry and far more genuine than his Captain America smile. “Heady,” he admitted, bracing his forearms against the balcony railing and tilting his head towards her.

“Are you drunk?” she asked curiously. Part of her wants to know what he’s like – is he looser, more uninhibited? Does he flush red high on his cheeks and does he look at everything through half-lidded eyes, like he can barely keep them open? Most importantly, does he lose that element of distance that he puts between himself and everyone around him – everyone, that is, except for Sam and Nat. And sometimes, even her.

Clearly, she’s thought about this too much. She thinks about _him_ too much. Nat calls it a yen but Maria does not have a _yen_ for Steve Rogers, thank you very much. It’s more like…an itch. She doesn’t like that word either, but it’s the most appropriate. It’s an itch beneath her skin that she cannot seem to shake, nor is she inclined to scratch it.

Although that would certainly be an experience. Unbidden, her mind offered a brief image of those broad shoulders nudging her legs apart-

As quickly as it came, she shoved it back to the edges of her mind. Still, it was enough to make her shiver.

Steve, of course, noticed. “Cold?” he inquired. Maria couldn’t even open her mouth to deny it before he was shucking the leather jacket and draping it over her shoulders. It was a gentlemanly gesture, one of the many that seemed to come to him as naturally as breathing.

The interesting part was that she doesn’t really mind it, even though she has spent more than one conversation with him explaining why he doesn’t need to hold doors open. Or why they need to split the lunch tab.

“Sorry, does this fall along the lines of opening doors?” His eyes glinted with amusement as he began rolling his sleeves up and no, she was not going to stare at the way the muscles in his forearms flexed and extended, nor the way the blue shirt was just a little _too_ fitted.

“I was just thinking that maybe you get a pass on this one, since the jacket is nice.” It was an admittedly solid leather jacket, buttery soft and warm from his body. She set her champagne flute aside and tugged her arms through the sleeves because there was a bit of a stiff breeze – there always was one, this high up in the city.

He paused for a moment, glancing at her through lowered lashes and _oh._ The look there was interested, considering. “You look good in it.”

Maria rolled her eyes pointedly, ignoring the sudden blossom of heat in her belly. Men could be so predictable sometimes. “It’s because it’s your jacket, isn’t it?” she asked. “I’ve always wondered – is it about the person wearing them, or is it just the fact that they’re in your clothes?” It was a rhetorical question, but something she has wondered about all the same, whether it’s about ownership or something else.

“I can’t speak for other people, but I’ve always been about the person wearing them.”

Well. She peered at him from over the rim of her glass. “Bullshit.” It’s one thing to be the person with a yen (damn it, Nat) for Steve Rogers. It was another thing entirely to be the person Steve Rogers has a yen _for_ , and she doesn’t quite believe it.

Christ. She might as well be waving the red flag in front of the bull. This was Steve Rogers, who would never ever back down from a challenge. “Want to bet?” he drawled, taking a slow step forward.

“You’re tipsy,” she said flatly, looking for any telltale reddening of the skin. It was too dark – his _eyes_ were too dark right now to tell if his pupils were dilated. “Possibly even drunk.”

“Maria.” She was unprepared for the way her name sounded in that lower, huskier range. It sounded the way his jacket felt around her. “Do you really think I’m acting like this because of the alcohol?”

She looked pointedly at where he was leaning against the railing, leaning towards _her._ Steve didn’t _lean,_ especially into people’s personal space. He was actually very conscientious about that kind of thing and for once she found herself wanting that distance. “Explain that.”

“ _Maria_ ,” he repeated. This time her name was nothing more than a breath, a sigh. This time, it made her heart slam against her ribs – infinitely scarier than any burst of heat in her gut or shiver in her spine.

Because she wanted this more than she should. Wanted _him_ more than she should, given their very different outlooks on superheroes and their place in the world. And yet here she was. She stood beside him when he brought SHIELD down around their ears and it probably won’t be the last time she does so. It was the damndest thing, really.

“You know, I could tell you all the reasons why I’m standing here. Why that jacket’s around your shoulders.” The look in his eyes was far too knowing to make her comfortable but then again, comfortable was not a word Maria associated with Steve. Impulsive. Reckless. Incendiary.

“I would tell you those reasons, but then I have a feeling you’d retreat, calmly and strategically, before coming back and telling me all the reasons why we wouldn’t work.” It was all said so reasonably, so blandly, that it put her instantly on edge. That was a blatant challenge.

Maria tilted her head to the side and considered. On one hand, she has never backed down from a challenge in her life and she had no intention to start now. But where had all this come from? This was one of the things that both intrigued her and put her on edge, when it came to him – his unpredictability. Even Stark, for all his idiosyncrasies, could be pretty damn predictable, not that she would ever tell him that.

Steve was an unknown quantity though, even more so with this little revelation. Maria knew the roots of her stupid little itch – trust, respect, reluctant admiration, and a heaping pile of sheer appreciation because she wasn’t dead, thank you very much. Steve, on the other hand? He’d never shown any romantic inclination towards her whatsoever, and Maria has been privy to all of Nat’s matchmaking attempts. So, she was actually curious about his so-called reasons.

But that was something to explore later. Maria was loath to rush into this, considering the fact that she thought she was alone in this until a few minutes ago. And if Steve was right about anything, it was that she does need time for a strategic retreat. She may still come up with reasons why this whole thing is such a horrible idea, but she also might not.

This was, after all, a scenario she did not anticipate and plan for, but now that it was here she couldn’t say she’s not at least curious.

“Hey.” Maria started at the light touch of his hand on her elbow. His expression was almost completely shuttered now, save for a small hint of – disappointment? And oh, she never actually replied. “It’s okay. I can, uh. Take the jacket back.”

Well, that wouldn’t do at all. “That’s a bit rude, don’t you think?” she drawled, willing him to _see_. “Seeing as you offered it to me in the first place. No, I think I’m inclined to hold onto it a little longer. After all,” she paused, and pointedly raised her eyebrows. “I told you it was a nice jacket.”

His expression shifted then, from blankness to a dawning sort of triumph and anticipation. _Game on_ , Maria thought, and with a slight smile, began to walk away. “I’ll take good care of it, Rogers.”

“I don’t doubt it,” he called after her.

She ignored Nat’s arch look and the way Clint choked when they spotted the jacket. But honestly, she didn’t care, not with the way Steve’s eyes would flare, dark and hungry, each and every time they landed on her.

Teasing him while wearing his jacket was…enlightening, to say the least. Slipping into that level of intimacy just seemed easy. And she liked it, far more than was strictly necessary but she couldn’t quite bring herself to care.

Then Ultron attacked and the jacket was her armor, the thick leather keeping her safe from glass and other debris as she went after the mini robot army.

Her feet weren’t so lucky, of course, but the jacket stayed on well into the aftermath, and it was only when they stepped into the elevator together that she realized she still had it. “You should-“ she began, her hands curling around the edges.

Steve shook his head. “Nah. Keep it. For now,” he amended, when she frowned. “I wasn’t lying. You, uh…you look good in it. And maybe we can have a little chat when you return it. When all this is taken care of.”

She thought about the battle ahead, and of all the little secrets she still had up her sleeve, secrets she knew were surely going to come into play. Would he still want to have that talk? she wondered. Because while Steve Rogers had her trust, her loyalty…perhaps even her heart, she still had her duty and that came above everything else.

Well, that was something they would just have to address later on. And in the meantime, she was going to enjoy taking custody of his jacket. Of having that little piece of him for herself. “I’d like that,” Maria said as the elevator stopped on her floor. “Good night, Steve.”

“Good night, Maria.”

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas, lotsofstuffandpapers, I hope you enjoy this gift! I figured there could not be enough jacket fic speculation out there. It was tough not writing an AU, but this ended up being a lot of fun to write!


End file.
